My Screen randomly goes black While in the Desktop!! Why??

[RussDogg]

When I'm in the desktop my screen will randomly go black. My machine is still on, but the screen is black. It's not operational, don't get me wrong, it's frozen, nothing responds. I don't know what's happening, my RAM is good, the temp is fine...? Please help.

 

[illusion88]

all right, this is real basic

did the cable fall out?

ok, probaly not. What are you normaly doing? Are you just sitting there admireing your wallpaper or are you doing something? Is seti/DC running? checking email? What? Im assuming that you are on win 2k still. I would check for any virri. Do you get any other odd problems? And last, this is most likely a video problem. Try getting a different vid card just to test out. Dont go out and buy one, burrow one form a firend or something, or use the PCI one you have sitting in the closet.

 

[RussDogg]

I'm either sitting in the desktop, opening up my e-mail program, or browsing the net. And it will go black. I used to have Win98SE, and I had a similar problem of it freezing instead of going black. I thought it might have been a OS problem, so I went to 2000. And now I still get the occational freeze, but more often I get the black screen. I have no viruses, it's been doing this since I installed the new OS. I used to think it was my video card, but I can play games all day, it has never gone black in a game, it's when I'm doing virtually nothing, or typing a paper, that's when it hits! I kinda think it's my MoBo? Could that be the problem?

 

[RussDogg]

Sorry,....what is seti/DC? And I don't have another video card handy, so let's assume that mine is fine, what other things could I do? Thanks

 

[illusion88]

try updating your vid card drivers. That might help. How old is your card? I shy away from blaming the mobo, to costly LoL. It could very well be the video controller, all though I doubt it.

 

[RussDogg]

I Bought the video card about six months ago. The reason I bring up the MoBo is because I've heard a lot of concerns about my model, so I bought a 2 year warrenty on it! I'll show them! Could it be corrupt video drivers? Would that be the reason my whole system freezes. It's done in 3 times since I posted this question, all of them are freezes, not the black screen. It's kinda wierd. Thanks

 

[RussDogg]

Ok I downloaded and installed the new driver for the video card. I came across something that got me thinking. I have a 21" Optiquest moniter from ViewSonic. It's drivers are for 95/98 on a floppy disk. It asked me to install them. Could this be the problem? I didn't install them this time, although I had previously. Stay tuned...